Lakeside Diner

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, also known as the ‘Bishop of Corum’

“The spokesman for Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn, who slapped a left-wing politician and threw water over another on a TV debate, is suing his victims. Ilias Kasidiaris went to an Athens court to announce he would sue the women for defamation.”

“The triumph of the French left in the first round of parliamentary elections threatens to redraw the map of party politics in France. President François Hollande seems assured of a friendly centre-left majority in the new National Assembly before the second round this Sunday. He may even be given an absolute majority of Socialists and their satellite parties for the first time in 26 years.”

“Japan is readying to restart some of its 50 idle nuclear reactors, with Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda going on national television to declare that society ‘won’t function’ without nuclear power.”

“US diplomats raised concerns that the frontrunner in Mexico’s presidential election, Enrique Peña Nieto, was paying for favourable TV coverage as far back as 2009, according to state department cables released by WikiLeaks.”

TRNN: “Israel and Women’s Disobedience. Social TV: Israeli women who disobey the movement restrictions the state is forcing on the Palestinians are being threatened and made targets of investigations of the police.”

“With much of the Arab world in a do-or-die stampede toward greater democracy, Saudi Arabia is looking to consolidate the old way of doing things.”

“United Nations monitors have said Syrian helicopters fired on rebel strongholds north of Homs and that many women and children are trapped in the city. The observers called on Monday for ‘immediate and unfettered access’ to the conflict zones, while in Haffeh, a mainly Sunni town near the Mediterranean coast, the US State Department said it feared a ‘potential massacre’.”

“The United States is withdrawing its team of negotiators from Pakistan without securing a long-sought deal with Islamabad to allow trucks to again supply NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan, the Pentagon has said. ‘The decision was reached to bring the team home for a short period of time,’ George Little, Pentagon spokesman, told reporters on Monday.”

“GlobalPost’s John Donnelly and a team of reporters investigate what experts are calling a ‘turning point’ in the global fight to reduce HIV infection rates. Successes in southern African countries have produced valuable lessons on effective approaches to fight AIDS, lessons that need to be learned in US cities where infection rates remain persistently high — particularly among African-Americans. Meanwhile a political confrontation looms in Washington over critical funding which could threaten gains already made.”

“A New York police officer who shot dead an unarmed teenager who was inside his own home has been indicted on manslaughter charges, reports say. Ramarley Graham was killed as he fled to the bathroom of his grandmother’s residence in the Bronx on February 2, prompting a wave of protest over the perceived excessive use of force.” What are the odds the cop walks, regardless of his skin colour?

Prof Richard Wolff’s Economic Update of 9 Jun. The main topic is the first part of a multi-part report on the co-operative Mondragon Corporation in the Basque region of Spain. Extremely well worth a listen.